Senior Luke Pappas divulged to The Stanford Daily that he has two girlfriends: school and baseball. The Stanford Daily’s Elizabeth Trinh sat down with Pappas to discuss his time on the Farm, his role on the team and his future plans after he graduates.
To read the full Q&A, visit StanfordDaily.com...
The Stanford Daily (TSD): Several guys on the team have described you as the most serious player on the team. Would you agree with that?
Luke Pappas (LP): Anytime you have a job to do, everyone has a different way of approaching their job or their task at hand. Different situations call for different plans of attack. Baseball for me is obviously a fun game, and I have a good time playing it, but I don’t know, I’m not always the most serious guy on the field. It depends on what the situation is. I am serious when serious is called for, but when the situations are different, I like to have a good time. I’m not always serious. [laughing]
TSD: In high school, you played football, basketball and baseball. Why did you decide to pursue baseball?
LP: If you look at me — in football, I played quarterback — and to compete at a Division I college like Stanford, I don’t really have the body type for that. Obviously, I realized that. Football I actually had the most fun playing, but I wasn’t cut out for it at the next level. Basketball was the same deal. I had fun playing in high school, but they weren’t necessarily sports that I wanted to compete at at the next level.
With baseball, I wasn’t actually recruited. I was a walk-on, but the sport has always been in my blood. I grew up with it. My dad taught me the game when I was in Little League, and he played for four years in college and professionally for a few years. So it’s always been a sport that’s been a big part of our family, and so I called up Coach Marquess. Coach gave me a chance during my freshman year to go out and try out for the team. I was fortunate to get one spot out of the 35, so things worked out at the end of the previous fall season for that to happen. So I just took that and ran with it. Ups and downs, no questions for the last four years, but it’s been a memorable experience, and one that I am happy that I’ve been through.
TSD: What has been your favorite baseball memory on the Farm?
LP: There are a few. I mean, obviously, you’re going to think back and remember the guys who you played with. They were a good group of guys, and a lot of them left last year in the [MLB] Draft as juniors, but playing with those guys for three years. And there are three other seniors with me — David [Schmidt], John [Hochstatter] and Jordan [Kutzer] — and we’ve been together for four years.
Thinking back to last year, that was the last time all of our class was together, and we’ve had some ups and downs. We started the season off kind of rough, but we put it together toward the end. We kind of squeaked in into the postseason and got into the [NCAA Regional] Tournament as a three-seed against Indiana, and we won that. I think Tommy hit a walk-off or hit a home run late, and we won the Indiana Regional. We made it to Vanderbilt and lost to them, who were eventually the College World Series champions last year. Obviously, you want to win every game and go out on top, but to make that run at the end of the season was fun. It was a great memory. And then, last year also, Coach [Marquess] won — I think it was his 1500th game at Cal. Any time you’re part of a milestone like that, it’s going to be memorable. Those are two that stick out.
And third, Coach called me in my freshman year. Initially, Coach called me and a couple other players and said, “we had a heck of a season in the fall, and there are 35 guys that we get to keep, and at this point and time, we can’t keep you this year.” He actually told me that the day before, and I’m in class the next morning, a 9 a.m. class, and I see my phone as I walk out. It was 10 o’clock, and I see a voicemail from Coach [Marquess], and he says, “Call me as soon as you can.” So I call him up, and then a player had decided that he was going to do other things, and a spot opened up. He said, “that spot is yours,” and that’s another memory that sticks out. Those three are probably the three highlights.
